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Article History

Received: 28 November 2025

Accepted: 9 April 2026

First Online: 22 May 2026

Declarations

:

: This study was approved by the Dublin City University Research Ethics Committee (Reference: DCUREC/2021/130). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki Declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

: Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. All students enrolled in CHM1033 (Analysis of Organic and Inorganic Species) were invited to participate via their registered student email addresses. Participation was entirely voluntary, and students were informed that participation or non-participation would have no impact on their module grades or academic standing. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to data collection. For the focus group, additional verbal consent for audio recording was obtained at the start of the session. Participants were informed of their right to withdraw at any time without consequence.

: Written informed consent to participate in this study was obtained from all participants. Participants were informed that: Their participation was voluntary They could withdraw at any time without penalty Their responses would be anonymised Their participation would not affect their academic standing Data would be stored securely and used only for research purposes

: All participants provided consent for their anonymised data to be published in academic journals and presentations. Focus group participants consented to the use of anonymised quotations from the session. No identifying information appears in this manuscript; focus group participants are identified only by codes (S1-S10).

: The authors declare the following potential competing interest: The Immersive ChemLab VR application examined in this study has been publicly available on the Meta Quest Store since its development. At the time of this publication, the application is freely available to users. However, a fee may be introduced in the future, with revenue to be shared between Dublin City University and Fourth Reality Ltd. . The individual authors do not receive direct financial benefit from app sales; however, revenue supports the institution's educational technology development activities. Safeguards to ensure objectivity: To mitigate potential bias, the study incorporated several safeguards: (1) institutional ethics approval was obtained prior to data collection (DCUREC/2021/130); (2) student participation was voluntary and anonymous, with teaching staff blind to individual participation decisions; (3) data collection occurred after all module assessments were complete; and (4) the manuscript transparently reports both positive findings and limitations, including technical difficulties experienced by approximately one-third of participants and prominent discussion of methodological constraints. The decision to report these findings, including negative aspects, was made independently of commercial considerations. The authors affirm that the introduction of a download fee does not affect the validity of the research findings reported here, which represent an honest evaluation of student perceptions conducted under standard academic research protocols when the application was freely available.